„This was meant to be the day for my first hike with Peter Jaeger butbad weather killed the plan. Instead I proposed we try at least abike ride together, after the worst of the rain had passed and hopingfor not more than drizzle at best.

Drizzling was it when I left the house at noon, but as we leftPeter’s house in Kami-Soshigaya, the skies cleared up somewhat and wequickly got quite warm in some sun. I wanted to show Peter some ofthe well trodden bike routes in western Tokyo and keep someflexibility to cut the ride length according to weather and our condition.

Peter wanted to get into the hills quickly, so I showed him Kan One,the „Tank Road“ through that park overlooking Hashimoto and then onto our favorite pit stop at Takao. We returned via Asakawa andTamagawa. The skies darkened on the return trip and eventually pouredall they had on us as we were approaching Komae. The shower passed usquickly, but as it was threatening to get dark, we had to move on andthus stayed in pretty heavy rain for most of the way home.

Peter started out at a brisk pace on his vintage racing bike and itwas not easy to keep up on my MTB. Eventually the cards turned and Ifelt like exploring how fast an MTB can actually go. Still nocomparison with a road racer, but at least I was able to chase astrong looking carbon racer and stayed with him even as he went wellabove 40km/h, unable to shake me off. That was the kind of fun I usedto have every weekend!

Let’s see what my back says tomorrow, after this longest ride in 1.5 years.